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The World Crisis 

and 

The Way to Peace 



By 

E. Ellsworth Shumaker 

Ph.D. (Yale) 

Author of "GOD AND MAN: Philosophy of the 
Higher Life" 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

Zbe fmicfterbocfter press 

1915 



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*?■$ 



Copyright, 1915 

BY 

E. ELLSWORTH SHU MAKER 



Ube frnfcfcerbocfter ipress, IRew H?otft 

MAR 16 1915 

©CI.A397143 






Addressed to : 

The President and People of the United 
States: the Neutral Nations of the Earth: the 
Church of God Everywhere: Noble Men in All 
Lands: the Mothers of the World: and the 
Lovers of Peace among the Nations at War. 



CONTENTS 

PAGB 
I 

THE DUTY OF THE UNITED STATES . . I 

II 
A WAY TO PEACE 30 

III 
A LASTING PEACE 55 

IV 
GREAT ACTION IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY 73 



The World Crisis and the 
Way to Peace 



THE DUTY OF THE UNITED STATES 

The World Is One 

" A M I my brother's keeper?' ' Yes, 
/ \ to the ends of the earth. Can 
* ^ it be that Almighty God wants 
the United States to stand idly by 
while half a World is in conflagration? 
No, a compassionate No! to the end of 
time. Is Europe's Gethsemane nothing 
to America? Is not the World One? 
Never was it so clear that the World is 



2 The World Crisis 

One. All the deep interests of human- 
kind are one and indivisible. As well 
might the Western Hemisphere attempt 
to cut loose from the Eastern and speed 
on through the heavens alone, as the 
United States try to cut loose from half 
a World at war. All seeming division 
and neutrality are as unreal as that 
imaginary line that purports to cleave 
the World into hemispheres. The solid 
integral earth itself makes light of such 
idle attempts. 

The World is One. Heaven is one, 
earth is one; the sunlight is one, the 
atmosphere one; God is one, mankind 
one; truth is one, reason one; the eternal 
ideal is one, the moral nature one ; beauty 
one and the love of beauty. Birth and 
death, consciousness and sleep, struggle 
and achievement, growth and destiny 



Duty of the United States 3 

are one. Sex and society, parenthood 
and childhood, brotherhood and friend- 
ship everywhere are one. Human thought 
and speech, will and deed, love and hate, 
courage and fear, imagination and hope 
are the same everywhere. The Conti- 
nents are all one if we go deep enough. 
So are the Peoples in their bases. There 
is one life, but various manifestations. 
There is one international law, one 
comity, one duty, one honour. There is 
one international trade and credit, one 
world finance and exchange, one postal 
system and telegraph. The great litera- 
tures of the world are one — history, 
fiction, poetry, drama. Art is one the 
world over — architecture, sculpture, 
painting, music. Science is one, philo- 
sophy one, education growingly one. 
We are one in prosperity and one in 



4 The World Crisis 

adversity. We go up together and we 
go down together. Progress and civiliza- 
tion in reality are one. We are one in 
peace and, ah, despite "neutralities," we 
are one in war. We rejoice together, 
we weep together. We work, we play, 
we pray together. In short we are 
bound in one common bundle of life by 
a double band — the Fatherhood of God 
and the Brotherhood of Man. All the 
dear interests are human and common. 
Europe's Gethsemane is our Gethsemane. 
There is no neutrality to noble minds. 

Civilization at Stake 

What priceless, what sacred interest 
of man is not imperilled? The instant 
a foot moves across the Belgian line the 
deepest interests of mankind are violated. 
International faith, national honour, the 



Duty of the United States 5 

rights of nations, the sacred rights of the 
innocent — they are trampled to earth. In- 
ternational faith gone? a thousand other 
trusts of man in man go with it and the 
World becomes a sea of conflict. Na- 
tional honour gone? already that nation 
is doomed. National rights? the rights 
of the innocent? these are the costly 
fruits of age-long sacrifice. The moment 
the invader's foot crosses the Belgian 
border, international good-will dies, in- 
ternational communication stops, inter- 
national trade ceases. The foundations 
are destroyed. What is there in little 
Belgium? What is there in France that is 
left inviolate? Human life? Soon the 
earth is red and rivers run crimson. Hu- 
man homes? Soon flames, then ashes, 
mark their sites. Hallowed temples? 
Their walls are pierced and their altars 



6 The World Crisis 

covered with ruins. Ancient seats of 
learning? They are razed and desolate. 
Glorious creations of art? They too are 
shattered and their beauty will never re- 
turn. Their peaceful fields are torn with 
shells, their cattle are driven away, their 
mines seized, their bridges blown up, their 
manufacturing plants destroyed or appro- 
priated, their savings confiscated, their 
cities put under ransom, their leading men 
held as hostages, their houses pillaged, 
their wives and daughters insulted, if not 
dishonoured. Men leave their ploughs in 
the fields and flee for their lives. Women 
quickly gather their most precious things 
together and run from their homes. 
Little children are huddled in carts and 
hurried away. If a man lifts a hand to 
defend his home or his Country, he is 
shot down in the public square as a 



Duty of the United States 7 

warning. This is war. And war is hell. 
And hell let loose on earth makes civiliza- 
tion and the Kingdom of Heaven on the 
same earth a trifle dubious, — especially 
if the saints stand "neutral." Peace, 
freedom, and representative government ; 
constructive work and wealth ; education, 
science, and art; fraternity, charity, and 
missions; spiritual religion, civilization, 
life itself! all are in the World's mael- 
strom. Three-fourths of the human race 
are at war or making ready for war. Is 
this no affair of ours? Is this no con- 
cern of the United States Government? 
When civilization is at stake, there is no 
neutrality to noble minds. 

The Duty of the Strong 

A "Day of Prayer" should be followed 
by a day of deeds. The logic of prayer 



8 The World Crisis 

is wise, firm action. No one is content 
with weak neutrality; no one is satisfied 
with prayer alone. Consequently our 
hands are stretched out with gifts to help. 
Consequently our Government proffers 
its good offices in mediation. We can- 
not be static. The sleeping and the dead 
are the only neutrals — at least among 
good men. Nero can fiddle while Rome 
burns, but Americans cannot. We live 
to serve. We cannot be onlookers when 
half a World is in flames. 

Indeed by solemn agreement we are 
already committed. The Hague Con- 
ventions (1907) have our signature. 
"Article I. The territory of neutral 
Powers is inviolable.' ' ■ Hence when the 
German army crossed the Belgian line, 
we were bound, as well as the other 
signatories, to protect Belgium. Other 



Duty of the United States 9 

articles have been violated. Germany 
therefore has broken faith with us also. 
How is it possible then to be neutral 
without grave wrong? 

A thousand things remind us that we 
deceive ourselves if we imagine that we 
are not in this great conflict. The 
"New World," we discover, is a part of 
the ' ' Old World. ' ' Everything, from the 
food we eat to the taxes we pay; from 
the conversation on the street to the 
pleading prayers in our churches, reminds 
us of the solidarity of all things human. 
For weal or woe we are one. We do not 
have to get in; we are already in. We 
have never been out, and could not be 
if we tried. Only in formal and artificial 
ways are we neutral and aloof. In every 
vital, spiritual, deep way we are involved. 
Witness the springs of feeling. Witness 



io The World Crisis 

our thoughts in waking, our dreams in 
sleep. Witness our wills in incipient 
action. Witness our whole properly 
human ideal world. Our souls are in, if 
our bodies are out. Shall Europe tread 
the awful ' ' winepress ' ■ alone ? 

Canada is fighting the battle of hu- 
manity. Why not we? Japan, Aus- 
tralia, India, South Africa, even, are 
contending for civilization . Why not we ? 
If anything is clear in this dread conflict, 
it is that the ancient struggle between 
right and might, between freedom and 
essential slavery, between democracy 
and resurgent autocracy, between law and 
self-interest, between the spirit of peace 
and the spirit of war, between the will 
to service and the will to power is be- 
ing fought out over again. Have we 
no concern in these high struggles? Is 



Duty of the United States 1 1 

this ancient conflict no affair of ours? 
Shall we be neutral — and hustle for 
trade? 

If a mother discovered her children 
fighting in the backyard, what would she 
do? If a big generous boy found two 
lads scrapping in the alley, what would he 
do? If a brave strong man saw two men 
coming to blows on the street corner, 
what would he do? Well — they wouldn't 
be "neutral." Duty and humanity do 
not lie in that direction. Say what we 
will, muddle our reason as we may by 
specious words y the simple principle here 
involved is the essential principle that holds 
between Nations. A great people have 
no more right, if they can prevent it, 
to permit millions of men in battle line 
to blow out one another's brains than 
mothers and fathers and citizens have 



12 The World Crisis 

to let their children and fellows peril 
one another's lives. 

The "New World' ' could discipline the 
Barbary pirates in the "Old World," 
in the name of international law, doing 
all civilization a service thereby, and that 
was not "intermeddling." The United 
States could stop the atrocities in Cuba 
with a strong hand and at the end with- 
draw her forces and set Cuba free, to the 
surprise and admiration of Europe, and 
that was not going beyond the preroga- 
tive of a great and generous Nation. 
Our Government could order its soldiers 
to march side by side, under German 
leadership, with the troops of Germany, 
England, France, Russia, Austria, Italy, 
and Japan to the relief of the foreigners 
in Peking, and that was not "entangle- 
ment," but laudable co-operation in an 



Duty of the United States 13 

imperative human duty. And at the last 
our strong, rich Country could return 
the millions of indemnity to China as 
an example of the "new diplomacy" and 
the Golden Rule between Nations, to 
the inspiration of a World and the en- 
during gratitude of the Chinese people. 
Only yesterday our soldiers were in 
Mexico and our battle-ships in the offing 
at Vera Cruz. What did that mean? It 
meant more than that certain United 
States marines were insulted at Tampico. 
It meant that a great Nation, in the name 
of civilization, was significantly admonish- 
ing turbulent Mexico that there are lim- 
its to turbulence. And the enlightened 
World approved. This is not unwar- 
ranted meddling. This is applying the 
law of the home, the law of the father 
and mother, the law of the big brother, in 



14 The World Crisis 

the larger home of humanity. Now if the 
United States, in this same great generous 
spirit, were to intervene in Europe, what 
illimitable, what unspeakable good might 
not be done ! A billion hearts would leap 
in joy at the thought. 

No Nation on earth is given our op- 
portunity. When President Wilson prof- 
fered mediation, the unique fitness of the 
act was recognized the world over. If the 
United States were now to go farther, 
if it were to lead in sympathetic, but 
firm intervention, the whole civilized 
World again would acknowledge the 
fitting leadership. Chief advocate of 
peace, exemplar of non-militarism, lead- 
ing Republic, richest, most powerful 
Nation on the Globe, ours is the au- 
gust opportunity, and ours is the sol- 
emn responsibility in the gravest crisis 



Duty of the United States 15 

that ever has overtaken the affairs of 
men. 

And ours is the cosmopolitan country. 
All peoples are here, the German, Aus- 
trian, Turk, Britain, Frenchman, Russian, 
Servian, Belgian, Japanese, — all are in the 
" melting-pot" here, melted into Ameri- 
cans. So this American people, this 
composite humanity, this great Republic 
can most naturally exalt humanity over 
all, and, in the name of humanity, best 
speak, as children, to the mother Nations 
at war. With no race hatred, or national 
jealousy, or world ambition; with only 
the highest interests of humanity as our 
motive, our voice is the voice of power. 
It is as the voice of God to a distempered 
world. And speak we must ; for the brute 
forces are again resurgent, the lower 
principles, always powerful in the animal 



16 The World Crisis 

instincts of the race, are again asserting 
themselves under new names. The ideals 
for which our Country stands are meet- 
ing assault. They are in danger. The 
believers in freedom, democracy, peace, 
and international good-will must reassert 
these costly ideals and maintain them in 
augmented power. Every humanitarian 
motive impels us. All solicitude for the 
precious things now endangered con- 
strains us. We have no choice but to 
act. We have come into national life, 
into unique influence, and into unparal- 
leled opportunity for a time like this. 
Did ever great Nation have opportunity 
like ours? Did ever God give to a people 
chance to act so momentously? 

Such kindly but strong intervention 
Germany could accept with dignity. Even 
Germany cannot war against the World. 



Duty of the United States 17 

And the German masses, those sixty- 
five millions, who, in their hearts and 
left to themselves, never wanted war, 
would be convinced as by nothing else. 
With them, the firm decisive action of 
this great disinterested Republic would 
"surpass all the argument of the earth." 
For what could this kindly Republic 
want? Not conquest, but peace; not 
ambition, but service; not revenge, but 
mercy; not might, but right. Universal 
freedom and fraternity under interna- 
tional law, with only international police 
enough to keep the peace, what could this 
mighty Democracy, that set Cuba free 
and returned the Boxer indemnity, want 
but that? And deep in their human 
hearts that is the thing that they them- 
selves want. Incalculably more potent 
for good would such strong unselfish 



1 8 The World Crisis 

action be than unseemly hustling on 
our part for lost German trade; and a 
thousand times more convincing to the 
German millions. Like an infinite stroke 
of welcome liberation such action might 
prove. 

Such unselfish intervention, moreover, 
would be a wholesome restraint upon the 
Allies. It would search the heart of their 
motives. It would set up a lofty standard. 
It would subtly discover and dissolve 
sordid interests. It would elevate the whole 
thought of peace. And in this tragic situ- 
ation nothing is so needed as elevation 
of thought, and nothing so redemptive. 
If the Nations in conflict could really lift 
their eyes to the heavens for one hour, 
war would cease, and "lovely peace" 
would reign — righteous and lasting peace. 

Such merciful intervention! What 



Duty of the United States 19 

exalted self-sacrifice! Saviour-deed un- 
paralleled in the annals of Nations! 
Infinite mercy to a thousand million 
lives! yes, indirectly, to every home on 
earth! What an exalted place then this 
Government of the people, by the people, 
and for the people would take. And 
the mighty impulse to civilization and 
religion therefrom might set humanity 
forward incalculably. 

But someone says, "What about past 
policy? This is going farther than the 
United States ever has gone." History 
answers at once, "Look not to me for 
precedents. Situation like the present 
finds not record in all my pages. An un- 
paralleled crisis calls for an unparalleled 
course.' * 

And this unparalleled course is the 
only true course. It is the only deep 



20 The World Crisis 

human course. It acknowledges the 
basic unities of life. It acts upon the 
noblest imperatives that move souls to 
sacrifice. And, like every true thing, it 
is the only course that liberates human 
thought and the moral sense, and de- 
livers us from moral and mental confusion. 
For who can think or feel with clarity, 
and without inner contradiction, as long 
as by inaction we are denying the very 
foundations and unities of human life? 
The individual or the Nation that by 
neutrality denies the everlasting bases 
of this fact-world — which is nowhere 
static and isolated, but is everywhere 
active and mutual— will remain in perma- 
nent mental confusion. Otherwise what 
means this strange bewilderment? more 
striking than memory records. Men 
know not what to think. They are 



Duty of the United States 21 

dumb with confusion. But let a man go 
up out of the low denials and contradic- 
tions of inaction into the highlands of 
vision and duty and deeds, and he finds 
that the simplicities and clarities and 
integrities of the moral and mental life 
are recovered. For our own soul health 
and inner truth and spiritual unity, as 
well as for sweet pity to humanity, we 
must speak to ourselves and to our 
Nation "that we go forward." 

Now this is only putting into frank 
words what more and more we are really 
coming to feel. "If the Allies waver," 
we are saying, "we shall have to get in." 
The interests are too momentous; mili- 
tarism must not win; for Germany's 
sake; for humanity's sake; for civiliza- 
tion's sake, militarism must not win! 

"Anyhow we must get in at the end, " 



22 The World Crisis 

we are also saying, "for there must be a 
League of Peace." "Such a thing must 
never happen again; we must see to it 
that this is the last." But if we must be 
in at the end for the sake of world peace, 
the time to get in is before the end. Then 
we are rightly in. Then we can legiti- 
mately participate in laying down terms. 
Otherwise, should Germany win, the 
United States would have an interesting 
time indeed in trying to establish just 
terms of enduring peace. And without 
such terms, the seeds of future wars 
inevitably are sown. Should the Allies 
win, it would be only less difficult for our 
Government to take part. It would be 
well-nigh impossible for the Allies to be 
fair to Germany. The iron Bismarck 
himself had to shake with rage and break 
into a flood of tears to prevent his own 



Duty of the United States 23 

Prussia from being unfair to Austria in 
1866. And even Bismarck could not 
prevent Germany's taking Alsace-Lor- 
raine from France — her fateful mistake. 
Hence, on either alternative, the future 
would be dark. Seventy-eight millions 
of Germans, to say nothing about the 
rest, could not be dealt with unjustly 
and humiliated without portentous re- 
sults. The future could hold only fore- 
bodings and fears. There is no more 
sombre aspect of the whole situation than 
this. But if the hand of the United 
States could help hold the scales of 
justice, there would be light and hope. 
If, however, we waited till the end, then 
proposed to sit in the fateful Council that 
drew anew the map of Europe and parts 
of the remaining World, that would be 
4 ' intermeddling ' ' to the last degree. The 



24 The World Crisis 

United States would better mind her Mon- 
roe Doctrine. She would better study 
once more the rights and privileges 
of ' ' strict neutrality proclamations. ' ' 
"Neutrality" is neutrality. "-In" is 
in. And "out" is out. This is the 
immovable logic of fact. 

It seems a strange expectancy indeed 
that foresees the neutral United States, 
of a sudden becoming unprecedentedly 
active, and even on the basis of strict 
neutrality, disposing of World interests, 
meting out the destinies of Nations in due 
proportion, and finally settling all things 
on changed and just foundations. And 
those things the crucial interests of the 
Eastern Hemisphere! And the United 
States the Country of the historic Monroe 
Doctrine, and at present leading ex- 
ponent of "Neutrality." Of course, that 



Duty of the United States 25 

is the procedure that Britain has been 
accustomed to! And that is after the 
very spirit of modern Germany! to say 
nothing about France and Russia! And 
would the United States, playing such a 
World r61e, still be inactive and " neutral" 
touching European matters? Hamlet 
was puzzled facing his, "To be or not 
to be." How would he have puzzled 
over, "To be and not to be"? 

No ; we must take a more positive part 
in world affairs, and the sooner we begin 
the better for this stricken earth. Isola- 
tion is forever outgrown. It was never 
the deepest truth. It was but a tempo- 
rary prudence, to protect the young. 
Jochebed may hide the little Moses for 
a space, and in adolescence he himself 
may be neutral toward the Egyptians. 
But when he has grown to man's estate, 



26 The World Crisis 

he must play a man's part in international 
concerns, and stand forth as the deliverer 
of his brethren from Egyptian oppres- 
sion. — And he was sent; the Bush that 
burned and was not consumed; the 
august Presence; the Voice of command; 
the "I Am That I Am hath sent me" — 
this was his warrant; and "he endured 
as seeing Him Who is invisible." 

The "IAm That I Am" hath sent our 
mighty Nation. No other people on 
earth has such power to intervene. It 
is as clear as day that we have a unique 
power and a unique responsibility. And 
no crisis in all the lapse of time has so 
called for a Deliverer. 

Strong men do not cease heroic efforts 
to rescue the living from a burning 
building until imminent death commands. 
Even then a fireman may rush through 



Duty of the United States 27 

flames at the cry of a child within. A 
great steamer that would not turn from 
its course and fly to the rescue when a 
Titanic signalled distress would be out- 
lawed from the seas. A civilized peo- 
ple that did not burn with indignation 
and rise to remonstrance at the Congo 
atrocities would be covered with infamy. 
Can America do nothing now? Can 
this mighty Nation do nothing more 
effective than pity and be neutral? Must 
Europe bleed white? Must five million 
more men, of the world's young life, be 
driven into the holocaust? Wherefore 
are we given incomparable power ? In the 
name of the Living God and in the name 
of the human race, are we to do nothing 
with that power? Are we to stand and 
look on? for a Prophet of the Most 
High to tell the new Nation of its duty! 



28 The World Crisis 

Most ignominious inaction, most in- 
glorious "neutrality" in all the history 
of power! 

"But, there is an ocean between !" 
Well, has not God's lightning flashed news 
and annihilated space? "Yes; but they 
are Europeans." What are our fathers? 
"But, it is their tragedy." Nothing 
human is foreign to good men. "But, 
Washington said" — What would Wash- 
ington say now? "But it might take 
some lives. ' ' Are not martyrs humanity's 
glory? Have you never heard of Calvary? 
"But, it would cost money." Shame! 
"Well, but, could we do anything?" 
What are we in the world for with un- 
exampled power, but to try, and again 
to try, with every mode of power, un- 
ceasingly, in the name of a bleeding race 
and wavering civilization and the Prince 



Duty of the United States 29 

of Peace? As sure as God is God, if this 
mighty People tried in that way and in 
that spirit, divine Peace would come. 

Europe can not deliver itself. Like 
mighty wrestlers, the Nations are locked 
in clutch unto death. To let go were 
weakness . To cry ' ' Enough ! ' ' dishonour. 
And so the agony lengthens. 

Where is the powerful Nation? where 
the mighty Voice that can speak the 
loosing word or do the saving deed? If 
it be not the United States, then there is 
no deliverer on earth. Mournful im- 
potent conclusion! and God have pity 
upon weeping mothers! 



II 

A WAY TO PEACE 

IT may be no comfortable Way. It 
may lead through struggle into 
Peace. But it will be the Higher 
Peace. And it will be righteous. There- 
fore it will endure. 
Here is the Way: 

Appropriate twenty millions of dollars 
for "Red Cross" work; ten millions for 
the armies of Germany and Austria; 
ten millions for the Allies. 

Beseech the warring Nations to pro- 
claim a General Truce for one month. 

Ask their Governments to say in few 
words, Why they war, What they want, 

and How they will make peace. 
30 



A Way to Peace 31 

Appeal unceasingly to God in universal 
prayer. 

Appeal in solemn protest through the 
Church Universal, the whole Religious 
World, to the Nations at war. 

Appeal to all Men of good-will. 

Appeal to the Mothers of the World. 

Appeal with vigour and firmness 
through neutral Governments to the 
warring Nations. 

Call immediately a Conference of the 
Neutral Nations at The Hague to form 
a Preliminary League of Peace, and to 
counsel together upon the unparalleled 
World-situation. Invite the Nations at 
war also to sit in Council. 

Should they all heed, then peace would 
be already near. 

Should the Allies not heed, then the 
way, alas! would be difficult. 



32 The World Crisis 

Should the Allies heed, but Germany 
not yield, then reluctantly, but firmly, 
recall all Proclamations of Neutrality, 
simultaneously with the sending of half of 
the United States Navy to the North Sea. 

Then, if need be, intervene through 
commercial pressures. 

At last, if need be, strongly but merci- 
fully intervene by the sword — until Bel- 
gium is free and the invaders driven from 
France and all neutral ground; until 
indeed true peace is gained. — Always, 
however, at each forward move, again 
offering peace, particularly when the 
invaders have been driven out. 

Here is a grave positive Way to Peace — 
a Way that follows prayer with action; 
benevolent gifts with benevolent power; 
sympathy with deliverance. In principle 
it is the way of the father and mother in 



A Way to Peace 33 

the home; the way of the big brother; 
the way of the great and strong and good, 
whether men or Nations. 

In principle, this is the way every 
hamlet restores peace, every city, every 
Commonwealth, every Nation. This is 
the way our Government is now restoring 
peace in Colorado. From the home to 
the Empire this is the simple way. In 
the past; in the present; in the future, 
this is the simple way. And this will 
continue to be the way as long as lower 
impulses have to be disciplined in this 
nature- world. All things taken into a 
true view, this is God's way. Over this 
kind firm way, mothers and fathers, 
friends, brothers, statesmen, Presidents, 
Emperors, all men, may unhindered pray. 
It is the road to true and lasting peace. 

The gracious motive and wisdom of 



34 The World Crisis 

appropriating twenty millions for "Red 
Cross" work to be divided impartially 
are manifest. The amount is not a tithe 
of what we have already lost, nor more 
than a mere fraction of what we may yet 
lose. It might, too, prove like seed- 
corn. But all such considerations aside, 
the motive would be the spirit of kindness 
itself, and the effect would be subtly 
beneficent in two Hemispheres. It would 
prepare the way. And we ought our- 
selves nobly to insist on having a gener- 
ous part in the World's sacrifice. 

As to the solemn religious appeal, there 
is no more clear and certain truth to the 
deeper insight of men than that inter- 
national relations and World peace must 
be founded on deeper bases. They have 
no confidence whatever in the superficial 



A Way to Peace 35 

♦ 
and sordid grounds. They have lost 

forever any fragment of such confidence 

they did possess. Either the World will 

have real peace or it will never know 

peace. And the dismal wretched strife, in 

its protean forms, will drag monotonously 

on. 

This many-sided Appeal, culminating 

in the Appeal of the Neutral Governments 

and in the Conference at The Hague, 

to form a Preliminary League of Peace 

and to counsel upon the World Situation, 

would become a psychological force of 

incalculable potency. If the Neutral 

Governments of the Earth and the 

Churches of the World and the Mothers of 

all Nations and the Men of good-will 

concentred their deep and grave interests 

and energies at The Hague, and steadfastly 

persevered day after day, week after 



36 The World Crisis 

♦ 
week, in their righteous and sacrificial 

mission, no warring Nation on Earth 
could withstand them. Though all hell 
were to erect its barriers of will and hate 
they would be burned away. Such a 
consummate focussing of the Soul and 
Light and Love of the World would be an 
energy irresistible. It would have in it 
the puissance of the God of all power. 
If the French people or the German peo- 
ple, literally possessed as they are by 
one all-dominating idea and passion, can 
mass and focus an energy that amazes 
the World and effects the seemingly 
impossible, lifting the common soldier to 
an endurance and an achievement almost 
superhuman, and the whole Nation to an 
exalted will and stern devotion before 
unknown, could not the religion and 
reason and love and compassion of the 



A Way to Peace 37 

combined motherhood and manhood of 
half the earth prevail to bring this mur- 
derous war to a speedy close? There is 
but one answer. Such a massing and 
concentring of the higher energies of the 
nations would, like the sun, inevitably 
melt away the frozen barriers of will and 
hate, and bring again the gentle Spring 
of humanity's true heart. Let men and 
women set themselves with utmost 
imaginative energy into that mighty focal 
situation, and more and more deep will 
become the conviction that no human 
resistance could withstand its subtle, 
constant, cumulative moral and spiritual 
power. If one half of the awful energy 
f ocussed by Germany alone in carrying on 
this war were solemnly put forth by our 
mighty Nation, agonizing to bring the 
awful conflict to an end, single-handed 



38 The World Crisis 

she would succeed — and that without ever 
unsheathing the sword! The Hague 
would fix and hold the eyes of the civilized 
World. The higher energies of the Earth 
would concentre there. The deeper soul 
and august passion of an agonized race 
would there focus. The Nations at strife, 
in sheer helplessness, would have to say 
before the World, why they war, what 
they seek, and how they will, make peace. 
In the very facing of the stern realities, 
before the bar of the World's judgment, the 
better sides of their various contentions 
will naturally come to the fore. And when 
Nations, like individuals, begin to lift 
their minds to the better sides of even 
their sharp controversies, the light of 
hope begins to break over the hills of 
Earth. Steadily, increasingly the nobler 
pressures of Humanity's wounded soul 



A Way to Peace 39 

would be brought to bear in such spiritual 
constraints as no Nation on Earth could 
long resist. Peace, the righteous peace 
of God, would not be far away. And 
through all, let not the mysterious Soul 
of man forget the Divine Heavens that 
arch ever over an effort, august and holy, 
like this. 

Intervention in the Name of Humanity 

Not for England as such, not for Ger- 
many; but Intervention for the sake of 
civilization and the human race. This is 
very different from striving as one of the 
protagonists. This means not conquest. 
This means not domination. This mer- 
ciful stern intervention means rescue. A 
delivering Archangel might use the stern 
power of the Almighty, but he would 



40 The World Crisis 

not thereby become partisan. He would 
not become a conquering Alexander or 
a dominating Napoleon. Such inter- 
vention is the glorifying of strength; it 
brings salvation. 

Two things must be in Europe: Life 
must be delivered from death and danger ; 
and life must be set free unto more and 
richer life. 

Let there be no misunderstanding. 
This intervention is for indispensable 
principles. Freedom, Justice, Right, In- 
ternational Good-will — these are the 
priceless treasures it stands for. It is 
not indifferent, not non-committal. It 
is not ''neutral" in the presence of 
Heaven and Hell. It is positively for 
Heaven. It is positively against Hell. 
It is for humanity and human weal. It 
is for peace — but true peace; not an 



A Way to Peace 41 

armed truce, not a militaristic, high- 
tension semblance of peace. It is not to 
flatter Crowns and castes, and restore 
the status quo. It is to help God's 
millions to a freer and fuller life. 

Here is intervention after the type of 
Deliverers and Saviours. This is Positive 
Neutrality not Negative Neutrality — not 
the inglorious non-action of the present 
time. A mother intervening between her 
striving children; a policeman interven- 
ing and restoring order; the President 
ordering troops to Pennsylvania or Il- 
linois or Colorado and restoring peace 
is not thereby partial and unneutral. 
He is truly neutral. He is neutral as a 
Judge is neutral, neutral as a father, 
neutral as God — neutral but not inactive. 
God is no respecter of persons; but He is 
a lover of all men — active as fire, eager as 



42 The World Crisis 

light. This is true positive neutrality. 
The Saviour Nation that intervenes 
to save five million lives and freedom 
for all and priceless treasure for every- 
one is not unneutral, any more than 
God is unneutral. It is impartial, but 
positive as the sun. If the United States 
intervened as the ally of either side, 
seeking the triumph of that side as such, 
then it would be unneutral. But when 
it intervenes for the good of all, it is 
truly neutral. It is living, it is human, 
it is Godlike. There is no negative life; 
there is no negative goodness. "Neu- 
trality!" it is the contradiction of every 
value in Heaven and earth, the oppo- 
site of every reality in all the gamut 
of Being. Whatever God is, He is not 
"neutral. " Inactivity has no place in His 
positive Life. He is the living God, ever 



A Way to Peace 43 

burning for life and rescue and fuller 
goodness. 

Such merciful intervention, such posi- 
tive neutrality, we dare hope would be 
acceptable. How could England and 
France do other than welcome and rejoice? 
Do they not want peace? Do they not 
want freedom and right and justice and 
good-will? Does not the United States 
stand for these? Would she not help to 
establish true peace? — not the crust of 
peace, covering volcanic fires beneath — 
and real freedom that is fraternity? and 
right for all? and justice for the little 
and great? and international good-will 
that is love? In what name could Eng- 
land and France reject such positive and 
saving intervention? 

Rejection on the part of the Allies 
would place them in a strange position 



44 The World Crisis 

indeed! Human reason could not frame 
a justification that would stand the white 
light of the World's scrutiny. For truth's 
sake, for shame, for honor, for candour, for 
the sake of all that is fair and noble in 
the World's costly life they could not 
reject. 

And Germany, if the Allies accepted, 
how could Germany reject? Would she 
wish to proclaim to the World that these 
are not the things she wants? Rather, 
might she not welcome the unselfish inter- 
vention of this great Nation as a merciful 
release, which she could accept with 
dignity and without a suggestion of dis- 
honour? Germany has proved herself 
virile, mighty, even marvellous. But she 
could not hold sharp controversy with 
half a World. Nor would she want to — 
at any rate her far-seeing men and sober 



A Way to Peace 45 

suffering millions. Such firm kindly in- 
tervention might indeed come to her as 
a boon out of Heaven. 

That such intervention would be effec- 
tive, even if Germany at first declined, 
we dare more than hope. It would 
clear up a befogged situation. It would 
reveal the Nations to themselves. It 
would bring them to their sober senses. 
In the very nature of things it would 
throw each Nation back upon itself, 
and out of the turmoil, the clear questions 
would rise, Why do you war? What do 
you seek? How would you make peace? 
To stop, and possess oneself, and scatter 
the fog, is more than half the winning of 
peace. For there is a strange confusion 
and self-deception about conflict. It 
holds now in this vast struggle. Look: 
"England, why do you fight ?" "I fight 



46 The World Crisis 

for my existence. Germany is trying to 
destroy me. " " And you, Germany, why 
do you fight ?" "I fight for my national 
life. England would destroy it. " "And 
you, France, why do you fight ?" "I 
fight for my very life. Germany seeks 
my destruction. " So the confusion goes 
on. Each one says, " I war to defend my 
life. The other wars to destroy me." 
But no one says, "I fight to destroy the 
other. He fights to defend himself " — 
which is equally true. This is the strange 
contradiction and self-deception about 
every fight. France can truly say, "I 
fight for my life. Germany fights to 
take it. " But she can just as truly say, 
"I fight to take Germany's life. Ger- 
many fights to defend it. " So Germany. 
So England. There is always this double 
aspect to a deadly struggle. But psy- 



A Way to Peace 47 

chologically each antagonist, in the first 
instance, sees only the first aspect. Hence 
the confusion and seeming contradiction. 
Hence France, Germany, England, and 
the rest, each appears to itself as fighting 
in defence of its life, and the other always 
as fighting against it. Now when each 
one stops and says to itself, "I am fighting 
to defend my life, but equally to destroy 
the other, and that is the reason why the 
other is fighting for his life and to destroy 
me," the confusion passes and the real 
double truth becomes clear. Then the 
present claim on the part of each Nation 
that it is fighting a war of self-defence is 
indeed seen to be true, but only half the 
truth. // that simple deep-going fact were 
gotten into the clear consciousness of the Ger- 
man, French, British millions, it would work 
surprising in preparing the way to peace. 



48 The World Crisis 

This is what, in the nature of things, 
firm merciful intervention would bring 
about. "Why do you war?" "What 
do you seek?" "How will you make 
peace?" Inevitably these questions arise 
and will not down, at the intervention of 
a disinterested powerful Nation. And 
the whole World takes up the questions 
and insistently calls for answer. Ah! 
if Germany and the rest had stopped 
for one brief fortnight at the beginning 
and calmly asked those questions in the 
presence of a judging World, there would 
now be no war. 

And in the end those are the questions 
that have got to be asked and faced. 
The war will end. ' It must end sometime. 
Before or after, sometime, these questions 
must be faced. Around some council 
table they must be asked and answered. 



A Way to Peace 49 

In the calm of reason, not in the fury of 
conflict, they must finally be answered. 
Ultimately, Europe must return to reason 
and answer reason's questions with 
reason's answers. Why not now? Inter- 
vention offers the needed opportunity. 

Besides, Europe is not necessarily as 
far off from peace as she may seem. The 
tumult of the storm is not as far off from 
calm as it may appear. There is a natural 
lack of staying power about towering 
passion. A strong wind may blow the 
wildest storm out of the heavens. A 
returning wave of sanity may sweep pas- 
sion from Europe in a day. Especially if 
that mighty wave were caused by the 
calm uprising of a disinterested Nation 
like the United States. Especially, too, 
if there be no sufficient occasion for this 
mad fury — as Europe now half realizes. 



50 The World Crisis 

Especially, also, if under the sobering 
influence of awful conflict, the conscious- 
ness were spreading that it was all a 
precipitate dreadful mistake. Especially, 
once more, if in the very constitution of 
the human mind there is a gravitation 
toward the equilibrium of truth and 
reason. So, with all her brave passion 
and grim will, Europe is not so far from 
peace as superficial psychology would 
have us believe. A superhuman strain 
seeks release. The deep sad heart of 
Europe already wants peace. If a great 
Nation will point the way, peace is not 
f so difficult as it appears. 

It would seem as though the United 
\ States had immeasurably better prospects 
of bringing this insensate war to a speedy 
close, than has either side of speedily con- 
quering the other. Yet they both stagger 



A Way to Peace 51 

on and strive in vast attempt. If our 
mighty Nation strove one half as hard, if 
we strove with the noble earnestness of 
sacrifice, with the agony of love, with the 
fixed deep determination that this awful 
crisis calls for, not all the above steps of 
positive intervention would be required. 
The warring Nations are sensitive to a 
degree to the action of our Country. It 
might well be that not half the above 
steps of firm positive action would be 
needful. How can we withhold the 
strong and brave attempt? If ever the 
World saw a day of need, this is the day. 
If ever grave duty rested upon a mighty 
People, this is the hour. If ever Al- 
mighty God prepared a Nation for a 
purpose and clothed it with unique power 
and responsibility, this is the time and 
this is the Nation. It is doubtful whether 



52 The World Crisis 

the World ever again will see opportunity- 
like the present or need so great. 

This mighty Nation has no more right 
to withhold its powerful intervention than 
mothefs have to look on when their 
children are fighting, or than neighbours 
have to look on while their fellows are at 
strife, or than cities, States, and Nations 
have to look on while citizens are in riot. 
The millions that are falling in Europe 
are flesh of our flesh and blood of our 
blood. The human bonds are deeper 
than all the bonds of government. Duty 
is as deep as human life and need. We 
can no more rightly withhold intervention 
than we can rightly withhold sympathy 
or prayer or beneficence. They are all 
really forms of action. Firm merciful 
intervention is full-grown action. Where 
does duty end? With the limits of power. 



A Way to Peace 53 

When the great Nation has put forth 
effort commensurate with its might, when 
it has striven with the determination and 
sacrifice of Calvary, then it will have done 
its duty — not till then. England, France, 
Germany, Austria looked on while thou- 
sands of Americans in Asia were being 
massacred — to their great and lasting 
shame. Shall America now look upon 
the appalling agonies of Europe and not 
put forth utmost sacrificial effort? If so, 
it will be to her infinite and endless dis- 
grace. O most inglorious "neutrality," 
most ignoble inaction in all the history 
of power! 

Our national future, the great World's 
future, through our redemptive Deed, 
might be permanently uplifted to a nobler 
plane. 

We have been asking for a great 



54 The World Crisis 

destiny. Here is a great National duty 
and destiny, worthy of humanity and of 
God. 

"We saw in the night a vision, a man of 
Belgium, standing and beseeching and 
saying, ' Come over into Europe and 
help us!' And when we had seen the 
vision, straightway we sought to go 
forth into Europe, concluding that God 
had called us to help a Continent in 
distress. " 



Ill 

A LASTING PEACE 

IT is true peace the World now wants. 
Of false peace we have had bitter 
trial. "Armed peace" is an inner 
contradiction. "Peace through prepara- 
tion for war" is psychological stupidity. 
Peace through the spirit of peace, and 
through preparation for peace, is the only 
truth and the only wisdom, whether in 
individuals or Nations. If the World is 
not learning this now, we almost despair 
of the human race. But certainly man- 
kind can not deliberately commit suicide. 
A righteous merciful peace must come 
to Europe or it will not be enduring. The 

55 



56 The World Crisis 

peace of humiliating conquest can breed 
only new war. The peace of injustice 
is not peace; it is postponed war. Ger- 
many can not humiliate France ; England 
can not humble Germany; Germany can 
not despoil England, without the inevi- 
table results. Napoleon and Louis XVIII 
tried to humble and restrain Prussia a 
hundred years ago — with what success 
the World can now estimate. Germany 
humiliated France and took Alsace- 
Lorraine a generation ago — and now the 
aftermath. Frenchmen, Germans, Eng- 
lishmen are too full-grown, too virile in 
will, too unconquerable in spirit to be 
dishonoured and repressed. So with the 
others. The thing won't work in this 
human World. Righteous benevolent 
peace must be established. Certainly 
the Nations must come before the judg- 



A Lasting Peace 57 

ment-bar of the World's conscience and 
reason, and must determine to establish 
the peace of God, which is the peace of 
justice and good-will. Then wars will 
■tease to the ends of the Earth. 

With righteous merciful peace must 
come Limitation of Armaments, An 
International League of Peace; with a 
Legislative Council, An International 
Supreme Court, and An International 
Police Force. 

A civilized Nation has no more right to 
arm itself against another civilized Nation 
than a civilized individual against another 
civilized individual. The only moral 
right that civilized Nations have is to arm 
themselves against the lower barbarous 
and belligerent peoples. This will be- 
come clear to every educated conscience 
that will face the question for half an 



58 The World Crisis 

hour. Time was when every family or 
group armed itself against the others. 
Now a hundred millions of people in a 
Nation of forty-eight States, or hundreds 
of millions of people in the many divisions 
of an Empire, live unarmed as against 
one another. They have no right to war 
or to prepare for war. Tomorrow this 
principle will be everywhere recognized 
among civilized Nations as it is now 
.recognized among civilized individuals. 
Consequently Limitation of Armaments, 
a League of Peace, a Legislative Council, 
a Supreme Court of Nations, and an 
International Police are the logic and 
expression of enlightenment. When all 
are lifted from savagery, we shall have, 
in a true sense, the ''Parliament of Man. " 
Meanwhile the civilized Nations may 
duly arm against lingering savageries and, 



A Lasting Peace 59 

so far as needful, may police the Earth. 
But development is hastening from Na- 
tional to World Ethics, from partial to 
whole truth. The Fatherhood of God, 
and the Brotherhood of Man, and the 
Oneness of the World and of Humankind 
are not vapoury nothings, but eternal 
Realities that must get uttered in the 
Ethics and Law and Life of Humanity. 

As the United States does not expect 
to be left out of such organization, 
does not expect to be " neutral' ' in 
such large matters, rather hopes to be 
among the foremost in bringing them to 
pass; so now out Nation should not hold 
aloof for one hour, but rather should 
accept the grave responsibility of her 
world -position and world-power. Firm 
merciful intervention, as above set forth, 
would put the United States in a position 



60 The World Crisis 

of helpful leadership and service surpassed 
by no Nation on earth. And to serve is 
to be glorified. This is the "true grand- 
eur of Nations." 

The World is now plastic to a degree 
never before seen. It awaits organiza- 
tion. A few leading Peoples can create 
new forms of life now that will mark the 
greatest epoch in international progress 
the human race has known. With this 
international organization of the leading 
Nations, founded on righteousness and 
good-will, true and lasting peace can 
come. 

"But, after all, is peace possible ?" 
men ask. War can not go on intermin- 
ably. Indeed such war can not go on 
long, unless verily half the human race 
is insane. 

What must the Nations do to bring 



A Lasting Peace 61 

peace? The answer is so simple that it 
seems too easy. It is so searching that 
it seems too difficult. In truth the sim- 
plest good man among us can name it. 
And yet many wise men seem to grope 
after it and not find it. This is not 
intended to mystify. Let us go back. 
Why are the Peoples warring? Because 
they are looking at the lower and not at the 
higher. They are thinking of self and 
of gain and ambition and mastery and 
revenge. Hence they are thinking of 
war. Even when they are looking at 
things higher, they are looking at them 
mainly through self. Honour? It is my 
honour. Right? it is my right. Free- 
dom? it is my freedom. Justice? it is 
justice to me. Yes, even when they look 
to God, it is still too much through self, 
to a God of the Germans, to a God of the 



62 The World Crisis 

Russians, to a God of the English, not to 
the God and Father of all men. This, 
in the length and breadth of it, is why 
I the Peoples are warring. There is some 
minor deduction to this, it is true, but 
only minor. Was the war inevitable? 
Yes; as long as they looked at the lower 
ranges. Was the war necessary? In the 
deepest sense, No! Had the Peoples 
looked at the higher, this war never 
would have come. Had they really 
thought of right and truth and justice 
and honour and service and love and 
peace, this war never would have come. 
Thinking of these higher ranges would 
have made the conflict as unnatural as it 
was natural when thinking of the lower. 
So there is the simple searching truth. 

Let not the Nations at strife, let not 
thinking men and women proclaim that 



A Lasting Peace 63 

this awful conflict was necessary; and then 
submit to it, and teach the trusting mil- 
lions to submit, as to an inevitable fate. 
There is indeed a range of Reality and 
Truth that makes the dreadful struggle 
appear to be inevitable. And there is a 
logic of that range that rightly moves to- 
ward its natural conclusion. But there 
are other and nobler ranges of Reality 
and Truth. These higher ranges have 
their logic of fact, leading just as inevi- 
tably to their nobler conclusions. The 
above ranges of right and truth and 
justice and honour and service and love 
and peace are just as real as the lower 
ranges of greed and envy and ambition 
and hate and revenge. And they work 
out just as legitimately, just as naturally 
to their excellent results. Consequently 
it is not the deepest thinking that sees the 



64 The World Crisis 

war as necessary. In the deepest view 
it is neither necessary nor inevitable. 
If individuals and Peoples descend to the 
lower ranges of their many-storied life 
and abide there, filling consciousness 
and thought with lower things, there is 
but one result. But if they make their 
home on the higher ranges, living in the 
humanities, filling consciousness and 
thought with things large and generous 
and pitiful and excellent, again there is 
but one result. There are higher ranges 
as well as lower. There is a logic of peace 
as well as a logic of strife. It is one of 
the most deplorable things at this time 
to think, but not deeply; to think only to 
the ranges and logic of strife, but not to 
the profounder ranges and logic of peace. 
And then to announce to the World that 
in the nature of things, this murderous 



A Lasting Peace 65 

struggle was necessary and inevitable. "O 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the 
prophets, and stoneth them that are sent 
unto her! How often would I have 
gathered thy children together as a hen 
gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
and ye would not! Behold your house is 
left unto you desolate!" There are the 
two ranges. There are the two logics. 
There the two necessities. In the deepest 
sense it was not necessary that their 
house should be left unto them desolate. 
"How oft would I" — "but ye would 
not." These higher and lower ranges, 
with their corresponding logics and ne- 
cessities, are in us all. It is true of 
individuals. It is true of Peoples. It is 
true of Berlins and Londons and Vien- 
nas as well as of Jerusalems. Let no 
People say that this appalling war 



66 The World Crisis 

was, in the profoundest sense, fatefully 
necessary. 

Here in our generous land the same 
Germans and Britains and Austrians and 
Russians and Frenchmen live side by side 
in peace. They dwell in the higher 
human ranges here. They abide in peace 
here just as logically, just as naturally as 
their kindred now engage in murderous 
war there. 

What must the Peoples do to bring 
peace? They must stop looking at the 
lower. They must look steadily at the 
higher. This is very simple but very 
difficult. Yet there is no second way. 
Finally this, and nothing else, must be 
done or peace will never come. War to 
exhaustion is not peace. War to victory 
is not peace. A vanquished enemy has no 
peace in his heart. Individuals or Peoples 



A Lasting Peace 67 

in leash are not at peace. If Germany 
humiliated France, would the French 
be at peace with the Germans? If Brit- 
ain worsted Germany, would Germans 
be at peace with Englishmen? Sooner 
or later the higher things must fill the 
mind or there is, and there can be, no 
peace. 

It is the supreme triumph of the human 
mind for Peoples at war really to lift their 
thoughts to the Heavens and to higher 
things. But it is possible. And it will 
come. And it can come very quickly. 
This is why peace is possible. Peace is 
a mental and spiritual thing. The ob- 
stacles are mental and spiritual obstacles. 
Therefore they can be overcome. And 
they can be overcome swiftly. All the 
multitudes that cry, ''Crucify him! 
Crucify him!" in the morning, can go 



68 The World Crisis 

away smiting their breasts in the 
afternoon. 

If into this difficult surcharged situation 
the United States entered with merciful, 
but firm, intervention, it might well be 
like a divine word of release. Her prayers 
are disinterested, her spirit unselfish, her 
sympathy real, her gifts impartial, her 
offer of mediation humane, her inter- 
vention sacrificial. Like the Goddess 
of Liberty, seeking not her own, with 
charity for all and malice toward none, 
she might enter, a beneficent Power of 
welcome deliverance. Her purpose, her 
thought would be of the higher. Subtly, 
inevitably, steadily her presence would 
lift the thoughts of Europe to the higher. 
The spirit of peace is contagious as well 
as the spirit of war; the spirit of mercy 
and good-will, as well as the spirit of 



A Lasting Peace 69 

revenge and hate. In the structure of 
the human mind, it is impossible that 
England, Germany, France, and the rest 
should go on warring to the death, if the 
United States mercifully firmly inter- 
vened on that high sacrificial plane. They 
must inevitably loose their deadly clutch ; 
they must come to themselves; they 
must stop and look up. A fortnight of 
truce and uplooking and deliberate prayer 
on the part of Europe would close this war 
forever. If it be not so, how can reason 
hold a seat in this distracted Globe! 
Merciful, firm, even stern, intervention 
on the part of our most responsible Nation 
is the hope of the World. 

And what a world it is at present! 
It staggers belief. It appalls the human 
mind. Europe a shambles; its fair fields 
becoming vast cemeteries. The flower 



70 The World Crisis 

of her youth cut down by the millions. 
Wives and mothers innumerable putting 
on black. Orphans multiplying by 
myriads daily. The carnage not lessen- 
ing, rather increasing. The agony and 
suspense of it all lengthening. Wounded 
men dragging themselves in groups to die 
together. Poor dumb animals writhing 
in pain, mercifully shot to end their 
misery. And other myriads being rushed 
over sea and land to be ordered into the 
welter! The whole indeed so awful that 
Governments dare not make known the 
truth! O God, a beast that lacks dis- 
course of reason could not be so insensate ! 
Is there no ruth, no merciful power on 
earth that can prevail to stay the mad- 
ness of the Peoples and stop the inhuman 
slaughter? 

For the order of this, our World, the 



A Lasting Peace 71 

United States is as truly responsible as 
any Nation under heaven. For its civil- 
ization, for the conservation of its life 
and treasure, for its deliverance from 
suffering, for its rescue into peace and 
joy, we are gravely and incalculably 
responsible. Was ever immeasurable 
power severed from immeasurable re- 
sponsibility? When we have tried by 
every mode of the exercise of power, when 
we have intervened mercifully and firmly 
as above set forth, then we shall have 
done what we could; then we shall have 
equalled responsibility with effort. Until 
then, the blood of Europe is upon us too. 
For let it be solemnly pondered that we 
also have helped, in a measure, to create 
the world atmosphere, the world spirit, the 
world life, and the world status that have 
made this dreadful conflict possible. The 



72 The World Crisis 

guilt rests not on Europe alone. We can 
not wash our hands in innocence and 
" neutrality, " and calmly say, "See ye 
to it; it is not our war!" 

O most ignoble inaction, most in- 
glorious "neutrality" in all the history 
of Power! 



IV 

GREAT ACTION IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY 

rHIS is facing the Crisis. This 
great action really grapples with 
the terrible situation. Anything 
else is trifling. It is little action in the 
presence of World-tragedy, World-con- 
flagration. This is great action, elevated, 
stern, pitiful, mighty, for peace. This 
equals the appalling earnestness for war 
with an august and sacrificial earnestness 
for peace. What else meets the awful 
situation? Red Cross? Charity? Prayer? 
Gentle proffers of Mediation? Plans for 
Peace afterwards? They are all beautiful 

— but, meanwhile, civilization wavers, 
73 



74 The World Crisis 

treasures are turned to ashes, lives un- 
counted are snuffed out forever, and tears 
flow down a hundred million faces. No; 
nothing adequate, nothing commensur- 
ate, nothing worthy is being done. This 
is vast noble action, worthy the majesty 
of the World's sorrow. 

And this is what the Nations will do 
tomorrow. It is incredible that half the 
Earth in the future will stand and look on 
while the other half is engaged in struggle 
unto death. It is unbelievable. Such 
intellectual blindness, such moral stupid- 
ity, such hardness, such inhumanity, such 
sordidness of spirit and impotence of will 
are impossible tomorrow. The World 
will widen its merciful stern action as it 
has widened its sympathy, its beneficence, 
its prayers, its charity. If tomorrow, 
why not today? in the awfulness and 



In the Name of Humanity 75 

extremity of Europe's need. Why not 
be rational? Why not be civilized? Why 
not be indeed human today? We bind 
up the wounded, we feed the orphaned; 
we bury the dead. Why not save the 
living and the strong? O God, how long 
must the Earth wait for common reason 
and common morals in World affairs! 

It is hard, very hard, to realize the 
senselessness of the customary. 

If one saw two engineers open wide the 
throttles of their great engines and rush 
furiously to a head-on collision and a 
deafening crash, till headlight grazed 
headlight and boiler touched boiler, and 
one engineer was pulled out of his cab 
scalded with steam and half-dead, the 
other with crushed body and cut face 
streaming with blood ; and if, on inquiring 



76 The World Crisis 

the meaning of this tragic business, one 
were told that this was the established 
procedure by which the engineers finally 
determined which had the right of way 
at that particular time, one would be 
utterly dumb with amazement. 

Or if one saw a stream of men, headed 
by lawyers, pouring from the right-hand 
door of a court-house, and simultaneously 
a like stream from the left-hand door; 
both crowds rushing excitedly down the 
steps to the public square in front of the 
Temple of Justice; there quickly forming 
in opposing companies and suddenly 
drawing revolvers and concealed knives, 
in an instant they fell upon one another 
in deadly combat, and fought and fought 
until three-fourths their number lay dead 
or maimed on the pavement and the rest 
were wearied to exhaustion; then if one 



In the Name of Humanity 77 

were told that the cause of this grim fray- 
was the title to a strip of ground lying 
between the lands of the opposing factions 
and that this procedure was the final 
method prescribed by the Code as the 
supreme arbitrament of the equities of 
the case, one would wonder whether one 
had stepped back forty generations or 
was in the presence of rational beings 
at all. 

Or if, passing along, one heard an alarm- 
ing din in a chemical labratory, and rush- 
ing to the vestibule saw professors and 
students on one side, professors and 
students on the other, smashing retorts 
over one another's heads, turning blow- 
pipes on one another, hurling jars, squirt- 
ing streams of vitriol, throwing grenades, 
firing hydrogen guns and other strange 
enginery of conflict; and continuing the 



78 The World Crisis 

deadly strife till half of them were blown 
to pieces, and most of the others mortally 
injured, the remaining half-dozen scathed 
with flame and all but suffocated with the 
fumes; and if then one were told that the 
cause of all this was a contention between 
two rival theories of the ultimate con- 
stitution of matter, and that the opposing 
partisans, having held forth in many 
series of earnest lectures, but to no tri- 
umphant issue, this was the ultimate 
method long established by custom of de- 
termining definitively which of the rival 
theories was the truth, one would almost 
despair of the human race. And then if 
one were told that this strange enginery 
of combat had been devised beforehand 
and secretly constructed by each side 
against the day of trial, and now that the 
issue was determined, the victorious side 



In the Name of Humanity 79 

would dominate chemical science and 
carry this superior culture to the bounds 
of the earth for the good of the race, one 
would be confounded beyond words. 
Senselessness could go no farther. 

This is war, the blind irrationality, 
the stupidity of it. Come look at Bel- 
gium. Read the declaration proclaiming 
it German territory. Infamous might; 
prostitution of power; ruthless tramping 
down of justice. And half the people 
fleeing from their own homes. Look at 
Rheims Cathedral, that was beauty flow- 
ering in stone. Look at that battle-ship 
sinking in five minutes, six hundred lives 
going down, and millions of property 
annihilated. Look at those soldiers in 
the middle of the river and the masked 
Russian batteries suddenly opening fire 
and two thousand Germans slaughtered 



So The World Crisis 

in a few moments. Look at that arching 
railroad bridge blown to pieces. Look at 
the English Channel sown with mines. 
Look at Poland, Galicia, east Prussia, 
north-east France. Look at the manu- 
factories idle, the merchant ships by the 
hundred tied up in harbours, universities 
half deserted, Red Cross nurses and doc- 
tors patching men up so that they may go 
back and in a fortnight shoot one another 
to pieces again ; soldiers sharpening swords 
on grindstones, because they have been 
made dull on human bones; fifteen mil- 
lion men away from their homes and work, 
the women left behind to toil and weep, 
and boys of fifteen and seventeen by the 
thousand being trained for the front. 
See again human homes, the nurseries 
of life, ordered razed for miles around to 
give clear paths for the missiles of death; 



In the Name of Humanity 81 

street pavements uptorn and great holes 
dynamited in the centre ; dykes cut to let 
in the devouring sea; aeroplanes a mile in 
air dropping bombs on defenceless cities, 
killing helpless women and children; sub- 
marines speeding under the ocean for a 
hundred miles to strike a floating fortress 
or merchant ship and blow all lives into 
eternity in an instant, and myriads of 
workmen rushing night and day to manu- 
facture new chemicals and explosives, 
found new cannon, and forge new and 
improved enginery of destruction. If 
some rare genius invents a new device, 
more swift and deadly, for use on land 
or sea, in air or under ocean, he is de- 
corated with the Cross! And the Nation 
rejoices to celebrate his praises. 

And all this for what ? For life, liberty, 
justice, prosperity, growth, a "place in the 



82 The World Crisis 

sun." If this is not senselessness, irra- 
tionality, madness, the world has none to 
show. It is stupidity, insanity, and dia- 
bolism all in one. With utter conviction 
we may challenge human reason to look 
at the ideals of civilization and then at 
Europe for one hour steadily, openly, to 
become convinced forever that war is 
not only hell but sheer insanity. Modern 
war is the supreme blindness and irration- 
ality of the Earth. It is the colossal 
stupidity and crime of the World. 

But it is difficult, very difficult, to 
realize adequately the senselessness of 
the customary. When one wakes up, 
this stupid ghastly war seems like a 
hideous dream. Still there is the dark 
irrational reality! O when will the calm 
holy light of truth brighten the human 
soul! 



In the Name of Humanity 83 

Why lengthen this madness, why drag 
on this senseless butchery? 

Germany wants a "lasting peace," 
says the Reichstag; France a " beneficent 
peace," says Poincare; Britain, a "peace 
that will secure . . . liberty and inde- 
pendence, unthreatened by militarism," 
and that will "redress the cruel wrong 
done to Belgium," says Sir Edward Grey. 
Thus they all seek true peace. So they 
fight for peace. They will fight, they 
declare, until true peace comes. 

Consider the nature of this procedure. 
If two individuals were fighting, with 
every cruel blow they would be farther re- 
moved from peace. Hate would become 
deeper, more unforgettable. That would 
not be the road to peace. Two things 
only could result : either they would fight 
to a draw, or one would conquer the other. 



84 The World Crisis 

If the first, would they be at real peace? 
Day after tomorrow, unless some differ- 
ent, some nobler element got in, they 
would be at. strife again. If the second, 
would they be at peace? Fundamentally 
impossible. A conquered or broken will is 
the very source of hate. From then on, 
there is a relation of inferiority. There 
may be no fighting, but there can be no 
peace. There can be master and subject 
but no essential peace. Comradeship is 
gone. 

It is forever the same between Peoples. 
Is the issue a draw? Then war is only 
postponed — unless different and higher 
elements get in. Is the issue complete 
victory? Then the vanquished is broken 
and humbled. There is domination, but 
there is no peace and can be none. The 
path of strife can not be the path of peace. 



In the Name of Humanity 85 

Mars can not be anything else than the 
god of war. It would be good if Emperors 
and statesmen thought themselves through 
here. By what sense or logic can pro- 
longing war bring true peace? Can 
Britains break Germans? Can Germans 
break and crush Russians? That is the 
only way to have even a semblance of 
peace. But do not Germans and Britains 
and Russians and Frenchmen know that 
civilization has advanced too far, the 
human spirit and unconquerable will have 
unfolded too much ever again to become 
subject? That time, that stage, is forever 
past. Britains and Germans and the 
others will die, but they will not be slaves 
or semi-slaves. 

Why then prolong this insensate war? 
Is there one page in all history that can 
show that real peace among developed 



86 The World Crisis 

freemen has been reached in that way? 
Is there any rational analysis of human 
motive and life that can promise such a 
result? Is there any light from Above 
that can justify such an expectation? In 
a word, is there any leaf in human experi- 
ence, any insight or reasonable prevision 
that can give ground for the anticipation 
of true peace through horrible war? It 
is a strange state of mind, this present. 
It is a confusion and welter of thought as 
well as a welter of strife. To strike a man 
is not the way to make him your friend, 
nor to kill him the way to make his 
brother at peace with you. Here is the 
short line. Project it to the ends of the 
earth, it will be no different. Why then 
prolong war that peace may come? 
Strange stupidity and blindness of our 
human mind, even in high places. Why 



In the Name of Humanity 87 

not spend an hour in calm looking into the 
nature of human feeling and motive, and 
then a lucid hour reflecting thereon? espe- 
cially in this most grave crisis that ever has 
overtaken the children of men. More war? 
Either a stalemate or a victory. Then 
with your modern men and your twentieth 
century look out for the consequences. 
When will Britains be slaves? or French- 
men? or Germans? 

Why lengthen then this stupid murder- 
ous war? A rational look at the imple- 
ments of war; a scientific analysis of the 
nature of war; a clear insight into the 
passions appealed to in war will satisfy 
any pure mind that we face toward 
the jungle when we begin to hate and 
kill. The path to peace is in the op- 
posite direction. Each average day adds 
myriads upon myriads of new personal 



88 The World Crisis 

haters to the inconceivable total, as the 
heavy news of the slaughter of husbands 
and brothers comes home to the circles 
of kindred. Before they hated with a 
general impersonal hate. Now they hate 
with a personal, intimate, unforgettable 
hatred. Is that the road to peace? If so, 
then the jungle is the kingdom of peace, 
and the tiger, not the dove, the emblem. 
How an awakened intelligence can stead- 
ily, really look at this horrible procedure, 
and not recoil from it forever, and pray 
and strive with the last measures of 
earnestness for peace and the things of 
peace, baffles and passes comprehension. 

One of the most appealing reasons for 
stopping this prodigious destruction is 
that the majority of the victims are youth. 
Think of boys and young men, before 



In the Name of Humanity 89 

their minds are half opened as to the 
meaning and worth of life, cut down by 
the hundred thousands, never to have a 
career and growth on this earth. Think 
of the vigour slain, the homes that will 
never be, the children not to be born, 
the millions of girls doomed to a solitary 
and unnatural life. By whose decree? 
By the decree of older men, the deliberate 
decision of fathers! Youth by the mil- 
lions deprived of their human chance by 
the fixed determination of their elders. 
Is this the wisdom of the elders? This 
the meaning of fatherhood? This the 
care of the older generation for the 
younger? And every device known to 
man used to move the youth toward the 
ranks, even to the limit of conscription. 
To the sensitive mind there is no more 
violent and deplorable use of experience 



90 The World Crisis 

and power in the world than this. It 
would be better if no man under thirty- 
six were even permitted to volunteer, 
and none under forty-eight conscripted. 
Then if the older men wanted war, they 
might have it. They are the ones that 
best could be spared, and their counsels of 
war would cease with them. But there 
would be no war ! A new type of wisdom 
among the counsellors would quickly 
come, new ways of composing differences 
very soon found — especially if conscrip- 
tion fell impartially on Kings and Cabi- 
nets, and the front line of danger were no 
respecter of persons. War would be 
found not so inevitable, not so divinely 
decreed as men fable. They would in- 
deed make short shrift of war! Yet by 
cold resolve war is prolonged and other 
myriads of youth must fall. 



In the Name of Humanity 91 

Who can calculate the moral damage 
of this war? Its prolongation is dulling 
the sensibilities of mankind. We are 
getting used to daily chapters of horror. 
We are adjusting ourselves. We are 
hardening our hearts. The moral damage 
to the young especially is incalculable. 
This consequence is one of the subtlest 
and saddest of the results of war. Any 
fine nature can feel the spread of its 
hardening influence. Few escape. If 
we deafen and deaden ourselves and do 
nothing, the brutalizing effect is increased. 
If we rise up, stirred to the depths with 
sympathy, and highly resolve to do our 
utmost, then we react against its brutal- 
izing power. Still the finer side of us all 
is being injured by the daily conscious- 
ness of the brutalities of war. If this 
could be realized, in its penetrative 



92 The World Crisis 

damage, nothing would more move 
fathers and mothers and friends of the 
race to end this and all wars swiftly and 
forever. 

And why do we not move? Why do we 
not intervene even, if nothing less will 
avail? But we shrink. There is an in- 
stinctive dread, a natural timidity, an 
impulse toward self-preservation. The 
situation is so unusual. We were over- 
whelmed, dazed. We were at a loss, 
awkward, inexperienced in World-action. 
The catastrophe was so vast. Wasn't 
it providential that there was a broad 
ocean between? Fortunate that we 
didn't have to get in? We drew back as 
from a vast elemental cataclysm. "Neu- 
trality!" happy refuge! and "so calm 
and sensible and dignified." Such was 
our confused mental state, our timid 



In the Name of Humanity 93 

solution, our passive refuge. But can 
we rest there? 

An engineer catches sight of a child 
drowning in a river. Quick as lightning 
he reverses his engine, stops the train, 
leaps into the river, and rescues the child. 
An appalling mine disaster occurs in 
Illinois. Doctors, nurses, fire-apparatus, 
and rescuers from far and near are rushed 
to Spring Valley. For days they dig and 
fight flames day and night in an herculean 
effort to save the imprisoned and suffocat- 
ing men. At last they reach them and 
save some. The young Lincoln watches 
an auctioneer sell slaves in New Orleans; 
silently he meditates, walks away, raises 
his clenched fist, and says to his friend, 
"If ever I get a chance I'll hit that thing 
hard!" 

"But this great dreadful war over 



94 The World Crisis 

there is different," men say. Is it? 
Little drop, you are like the Ocean. 
Ocean, you are like the little drop. 
Palling apple, you are like the falling 
Galaxy. Moving Galaxy, you are like 
the falling apple. Little candle, you are 
like the fiery Sun. Flaming Sun, you are 
like the little candle. A nine-year-old 
said to his mother, when she was reading 
to him about the terrible battles in 
Europe, "Mother, why don't they make 
them stop?" No neutral statesman on 
earth can answer that question. No 
human mind can justify non-action. All 
the neutral Cabinets and Rulers of the 
World can not frame a rational answer 
that will satisfy the mind of that boy 
or the uncorrupted reason and conscience 
of mankind. There is no answer. The 
laws of the nursery are the laws of the 



In the Name of Humanity 95 

World. The ethics of the individual are 
the ethics of humanity. " Mother, why 
don't they make them stop?" 

We will not let a citizen burn down his 
own house or cut his own throat with his 
own razor, much less his neighbour's house 
of throat. We will not let two men meas- 
ure off a space and shoot to blow out one 
another's brains, even if they agree to do 
so beforehand. We will not let parents 
jeopard their own children's lives, nor 
destroy the life of offspring, even unborn. 
Shall we permit Nations to burn down 
whole cities, send fleets of merchantmen 
to the bottom of the sea, and lay low 
human lives by the million, because they 
have agreed to do so in impetuous haste? 
At this very moment Germany would 
burn down Paris and London and destroy 
millions of soldiers' lives, if thereby, and 



96 The World Crisis 

only thereby, they could triumph. At 
this very moment England and France 
would burn down Berlin and Vienna, and 
destroy millions of soldiers' lives, if 
thereby, and only thereby, they could 
triumph. It seems too horrible, too 
inhuman to think of. But what warrant 
do these last months give for thinking 
otherwise? "War is war" they say. 

If this situation can not move our 
mighty Nation, what could happen on 
earth awful enough to do so? The de- 
struction is so wide it outgoes conception ; 
so horrible, the heart bleeds to think of it. 
And the United States doing nothing! O 
that the august imperatives of duty might 
become clear! That the larger thought, 
the broader imagination, the wider vision 
might come! That the human home 
might be truly seen as the World, not as 



In the Name of Humanity 97 

our Country merely, humankind felt as 
brothers in all lands, human duty, that 
knows not place, quickly acknowledged 
wherever need appeals! A sympathy, 
a thought, a prayer, a charity that does 
not take in all mankind is ignoble. It 
is not fully human. Duty, action that 
does not take in all men, is ignoble. It 
is not completely human. 

The first international conference of 
neutral Nations, assembled in any part of 
the globe since the war began, gathered 
at Washington, December 8th. Twenty 
Republics were represented, our great Re- 
public leading. What were they together 
for? For the sake of ideals? No; in 
the interest of commerce. About a fort- 
night later, the first formal and firm 
protest, representing the same twenty 



98 The World Crisis 

Republics, was made. Against what? 
Violation of Belgian neutrality? No; 
against interfering with American money- 
making. This protest was dispatched 
on Christmas Eve — eve of the birth of 
the Prince of Peace! No solemn protest 
yet against war! No great action yet 
toward peace! 'Twill be recorded to 
the ever-lasting and ineffable disgrace of 
the twenty Republics, and especially the 
United States. Our Ambassador at Lon- 
don represented to Britain that the 
United States was thoroughly in earnest ! 
The protest concludes with a warning 
seeking to impress on the British Govern- 
ment that interference with American 
trade "may arouse a feeling contrary to 
that which has so long existed between 
the American and British peoples. ,, 
What shall we say? Silent touching 



In the Name of Humanity 99 

the highest and gravest interests of the 
human race! Emphatically protesting 
touching interference with American dol- 
lars! Is this American leadership? This 
the destiny of the Great Republic? This 
"getting ready" to render a " supreme 
service" to Europe and the World? 

England, France, Germany have been 
unified, solemnized, in a way, exalted by 
their boundless sacrifice, suffering, and 
sorrow. It is probably unparalleled. Is 
there no infinite appeal that can be made 
to the United States and to the other 
Republics? Is there no unity, exaltation, 
and sublime action for them in the name 
of freedom and justice, humanity and 
mercy? There should be such grandeur 
of soul now, such elevation of resolve, 
such glory of action, such boundlessness 
of sacrifice, as the earth never has known. 



ioo The World Crisis 

It is a World-tragedy, a World-sorrow. 
The appeal should be surpassing; the 
response unparalleled. "O beautiful, 
my Country!" may thy Leadership be 
glorious! 

Two souls dwell in the German breast, 
in the British, and in the others. The 
baser soul thirsts for triumph, lusts after 
dominion and aggrandizement, seeks dis- 
guised revenge. The nobler seeks right, 
justice, honour, peace, and good-will. The 
nobler soul is not dead. It shall yet rise 
up like a rock out of the sea of passion. 
But how troubled the sea! and how dark! 
Still the eternal soul of these Peoples 
shall yet arise. Germans, Frenchmen, 
Britains are not depraved spirits. They 
shall yet listen to the "still small voice." 
Chastened, sobered, purified, they shall 



In the Name of Humanity 101 

yet listen to truth and right and love and 
peace. Have faith in God. Have faith 
in man. Unspeakable pity that such 
storms should sweep and deluge the 
human spirit. But the God who could 
upheave a Continent from the weltering 
sea, bring order out of chaos and light 
out of darkness, will bring peace again 
to this troubled Earth. Have faith in 
God! Have faith in man! 

Peace does not seem impossible when 
we stop and hear the Nations tell, in 
nobler speech, why they war. "For 
freedom and public right, for justice, life, 
and possessions, for the sanctity of 
treaties and the destruction of militarism, 
we war," says Britain. "For the same 
high things we strive," says France — 
many adding, "and for the Provinces 
wrongly wrested from us." "And we 



102 The World Crisis 

strive/' says Germany, "for honour and 
greatness, for life and existence, for 
right and freedom, for equal opportunity 
and the destruction of navalism, and for 
the fulfilment of our cultural mission. " 
And all strive for "lasting peace. 11 Such 
speech does not make truce and peace im- 
possible. Can not strong Nations, like 
strong men, come together and under- 
stand each other? In a fortnight, twenty 
great noble men, together with our rare Pre- 
sident, could determine conditions and out- 
lines of peace. To prolong this stupid, 
murderous, and barbarous war is as un- 
necessary as it is monstrous. There are 
noble men, there are noble heights in 
humanity, there are noble planes of truth 
and duty, that can stop this insensate 
and iniquitous war almost tomorrow! 
When strong and noble men, for such 



In the Name of Humanity 103 

high purpose, come together, Almighty 
God will bow the Heavens, if need be, 
and come down ! Possible peace is nearer 
than we think, for God is near — and God 
is Love. Though ' ' Europe rock and sway 
in the convulsions of great war, " yet just 
and righteous peace can come. 

But when? The exigency is so appal- 
ling that we look up and ask, Why does 
not God intervene? Doubtless more 
prayers for deliverance are being offered 
than ever have gone up from this afflicted 
earth. Why does not God intervene? 
Is He not pitiful? Does He not care? 
Why does He not come forth and stay 
the ragings of war? 

It seems once for all clear that God 
does not thus interpose. If ever, then 
now. For will the world again know 
extremity like this? The Infinite Com- 



104 The World Crisis 

passion verily is moved with tenderness 
divine. For what is this flood of pity 
that we feel, but the tide of His Being? 
No; God helps man through man. Not 
as a forth-put Hand of Might does He 
come. But as an interior presence, Spirit 
to spirit. Directly to the souls ; indirect- 
ly through pitying men. If the Father 
saves his children now, it will be by the 
touch of the Spirit, and the inspired soul 
and might of brother men. More august, 
therefore, is our warrant, more meaning- 
ful our deep impulses to help. They 
are the movements of God in the souls of 
men. They are the spiritual interven- 
tions of the Eternal Pity. They are the 
saving movements of God. How august, 
then, how imperative, are the overflowing 
sympathies, the divine unrests, the up- 
surging impulses that we feel. They are 



In the Name of Humanity 105 

the disturbings of God, thrusting us forth 
to the mighty work of rescue. If ever 
God moved men to help, if ever He called 
them to divine intervention, it is now. 
The need is so vast, so appealing. He 
saves man through man — this is God's 
intervention. Blessed are the men and 
women who feel the Divine urge and 
nobly act! 

"But surely the Way must be very hard 
to find and circuitous ?" Yes, for selfish 
unearnest men. For noble earnest men, 
the Way is very simple and easy to find. 
It is the straightforward Way of high 
resolve to help. It is the simple purpose, 
deep as mother love, to save the children 
of men and God from death. It is as 
deep and earnest for peace and life, as 
the present sacrifice for war and death. 



106 The World Crisis 

This is the simple Way, and brave, 
loving men and women can quickly 
find this Way. No subtlety of wis- 
dom is called for. Only the simplicity 
of love and sacrifice. In Europe now 
we see enough of subtleties, circuitous 
diplomacies, legal technicalities, and 
Machiavellian duplicities. May God 
give the World honest love and straight- 
forwardness henceforth! and see what 
that will do. 

And no President since Lincoln has 
been more fit to lead in so grave and high 
a work. Happy the Nation with a 
Leader so strong and calm and superior. 
Happy also the Nation, at such a time, 
whose Secretary of State is large and 
generous of nature. Great souls, both 
of them, lovers of peace, and withal 
fearless men. No Nation in this great 



In the Name of Humanity 107 

Crisis has opportunity like ours, and 
none Leaders more fit. 

Great President of a Great People: 
Leading Republic of the World: Neutral 
Nations in all the Earth : Church of God 
everywhere: Noble Men in All Lands: 
Mothers of the World: and Lovers of 
Peace among the Nations at War: Yours 
is the august Opportunity, and yours is 
the solemn Responsibility in the gravest 
Crisis that ever has overtaken the affairs 
of men. 

How can the Christian, how can the 
human World endure to see this monstrous 
butchery drag on? Our hearts bleed for 
suffering humanity. Our very souls cry 
out to Thee, O God! Come quickly, Lord, 
and bring in the time when our humane 
men and women shall govern the World. 



108 The World Crisis 

Hear the solemn words of our Presi- 
dent: "Look abroad upon the troubled 
world! Only America at peace! Among 
all the great Powers of the world, only 
America saving her power for her 
own people! Only America using her 
great character and her great strength 
in the interests of peace and pros- 
perity! 

"Do you not think it likely that the 
world will sometime turn to America and 
say : ' You were right and we were wrong. 
You kept your head when we lost ours. 
You tried to keep the scale from tipping, 
and we threw the whole weight of arms on 
one side of the scale. Now, in your self- 
possession, in your coolness, in your 
strength, may we not turn to you for 
counsel and assistance? ' 

"Think of the deep-wrought destruc- 



In the Name of Humanity 109 

tion of economic resources, of life and 
hope, that is taking place is some parts 
of the world; and think of the reservoir 
of hope, the reservoir of energy, the re- 
servoir of sustenance, that there is in 
this great land of plenty. May we not 
look forward to the time when we shall 
be called blessed among the nations, 
because we succoured the nations of 
the world in their time of distress and 
dismay? 

"I, for one, pray God that that solemn 
hour may come, and I know the solidity 
of character and I know the exaltation 
of hope, I know the high principle with 
which the American people will respond 
to the call of the world for this service; 
and I thank God that those who believe 
in America, who try to serve her people, 
are likely to be also what America herself 






no The World Crisis 

from the first intended to be, the servant 
of mankind. " 

That "solemn hour" has come! 
"O beautiful, my Country!" may thy 
Leadership be glorious! 



THE END 



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GOD AND MAN 

Philosophy of the Higher Life 

By E. Ellsworth Shumaker, Ph.D. (Yale) 

Cloth. 8°. 408 pages. $2.00 net 

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New York London 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper pre 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 



Treatment Date: 



MAY 



PreservationTechnoioj 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERV 



